


#hackandmatch

by orphan_account



Category: Free!
Genre: Alternate Universe, Computers, Fluff, Hacking, Love Letters, M/M, Makoharu Fanfiction Festival, Matchmaking, Nonverbal Communication, Phone Calls & Telephones
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-24
Updated: 2015-01-24
Packaged: 2018-03-08 22:07:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3225182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>It all starts when Haruka’s laptop goes flying into the pool and the love letters are lost. </i>
</p><p>Or, the story of how Nanase Haruka, shut-in hacker-extraordinaire, attempts to woo his childhood best friend from behind his computer screen.</p><p>(And that maybe falling in love might be an <i>offline</i> thing for him, after all.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	#hackandmatch

**Author's Note:**

> This is my submission for the Makoharu Fanfiction Festival! The prompt was as simple as it gets: **Haru is a computer hacker!**
> 
> So, I decided to expand on this AU a little bit. In this short multichapter, Haru codes instead of swimming competitively (though he still swims), and Makoto has just moved back to Iwatobi for his last year of high school (following about a decade-long distance.) Haru and Makoto have kept in touch all this time, developing a strong bond through letters and frequent phone calls over the years. 
> 
> I wanted this fic to explore the theme of face-to-face communication in an age where technology runs rampant. (Not to say that technology is bad of course, because I'm on the internet all the time...) Anyway, to the prompter, I hope you enjoy this! It's probably going to be a rather short multi-chapter composed of the purest fluff I can think of.

**x**

 

Nagisa gets the clients, Rei designs the interface, and Haruka writes the code.

“How about this?” Rei asks, holding up his laptop. “ _Tachibana-senpai_ …” Rei reads in a dramatic voice, “your swimming inspires me. Your backstroke makes my heart flutter.” He points at the screen, waving his hand around the god-awful magenta template he's mocked up on Photoshop, as per the request of the second-year girl with a penchant for electric pinks.

Nagisa laughs, pointing past the color and straight at the butterflies.

"That’s the worst one  _yet_! You might like butterflies, but that doesn't mean Mako-chan will."

" _Mako-chan_?" Rei cringes. "That's much too informal for someone you don't even know."

"He  _looks_ like a Mako-chan."

"Whatever!"

Howling with frustration, Rei bangs his head on the desk and presses down on his touchpad, deleting his newest draft and opening a new, blank canvas to start over. Haruka only stares from the desk next to his, letting out a tired sigh because he  _really_  doesn’t want to be here right now, and turns his attention back towards the window.

Coding weather. Smelling the steady downpour of rain, what Haruka would really like at this point is a long, interrupted bath with no one to bother him for the rest of the evening. He then remembers about the virtual hackathon he signed up for last week, taking place in Spain, of all places, and that he probably won't be getting much sleep tonight with all things considered. He thinks it's worth it though, given the grand prize: a boat trip on the Dead Sea. Just floating out on the water with no one to bother him.

"Haru-chan, what should we do?" Nagisa whines. "I've never had an unhappy client...and I don't want to start now."

According to the official Iwatobi High School club roster, the three of them are known as the computer science club, devoted to teaching basic CSS, HTML, and Java to the high school community.  

To  _everyone else_ , they’re the matchmakers for the digital age, a student-run agency dedicated to promoting the fleeting and silly nature of teenage love through the creation of elaborate microsites, programs, and mobile apps.

Well, Nagisa and Rei don’t do any of the creating,  _the coding._  Haruka usually handles most of that, the  _backend_  stuff, mainly because he doesn't like having to deal with anyone or anything else. The click of the keyboard under him, numbers and letters in all sorts of combinations, feels as free as the pull of water through his open palm. 

“Are we done yet?” Haruka asks dully with his chin perched on a balled-up fist. He’d tap his foot to make a point if it wasn’t so much trouble.

“Aw, this is the last one today, Haru-chan. Promise.” Nagisa claps his hands together, as if begging is going to make any of this move faster. “And can't you help out? Mako-chan  _is_  your best friend, right? Wouldn’t you know what makes him  _tick_?”

“So _?_ ” Haruka asks bluntly.

“ _So,_  we already have a foot in the door. Gosh, I’m surprised we haven’t gotten him matched sooner.”

“He  _just_  moved back here.” Haruka rolls his eyes. He knows it's different getting to see him in person again, even if they've never lost contact through letters, phones calls, and emails. 

"Can't we resume tomorrow, Nagisa-kun? I've done sixteen mockups today! I think that warrants a break."

"I agree." Haruka chimes in, officially making it two against one, effectively ending any conversation about his childhood best friend. 

Nagisa throws his hands up into the air and scrunches his lips like a goldfish. "Fine!" He relents. "But you guys are working  _overtime_ tomorrow." Then he looks over at Haruka. "And  _you're_ going to help us crack the Tachibana Makoto case!"

Haruka sighs, getting up from his desk and gathering his things. "Whatever," he says, walking out with a simple wave of his hand. His fingers twitch for the code waiting to be finished at home, a hackathon in Spain, and a potential victory trip to the Dead Sea.

 

**x**

 

Haruka has hacked into hundreds of profiles by now, cracking the most ridiculous of online pseudonyms and sorting through the dirtiest details, but at the end of the day one thing stands out to him more than anything: he just doesn't care about any of it. 

As he logs in to check a new profile for a client he doesn't even know, Haruka wishes he had stayed in the tub longer instead.

Fukushima Hana, Aged 16, first year at Iwatobi High School. Her private message to a friend:  _Just got a new cat named Mochi...not a fan. Wish my dog was still alive._

Haruka picks up his phone and dials for Nagisa. He doesn't have to wait too long for his friend to answer.

"Ya- _hoo_! Haru-chan!"

"Mobile game." Haruka cuts right to the chase.

"Huh?" 

"For the boy who has a crush on..." Haruka looks up to scan the name again. "Fukushima Hana. We should make a mobile game."

"Oh? Why's that?"

Haruka clicks through pictures of her and her deceased dog. "She misses her dog. Make a game with a mascot that resembles it."

"Ah, yes, and then have the guy show it to her  _casually._ And then when she reaches the end of the game, the  _confession_  will pop up! Poof!"

"Yes." Haruka answers him simply. He can code the  _poof_ part in his sleep.

"Great, I'll go call our client right away and let him know what the plan is and—"

"Nagisa."

"Ah, yes, Haru-chan?"

"You know my rules about this sort of thing."

"Yes, of course, I know!"

" _Nagisa._ "

A sigh comes from the other line. "Make sure they form a meaningful connection first. He should get to know her,  _yadda yadda_..."

"And?"

"If they don't, you won't code for us."

"Okay." Haruka is satisfied with the answer. Nagisa just laughs, like he always does after having to recite Haruka's one and only rule.

"You know, Haru-chan, the way you sound, you might as well get offline and match them yourself. In person."

"Too much trouble." He thinks there's a reason why Nagisa and Rei handle that sort of thing. Playing this game is just more convenient from behind the computer screen. It lets him quit,  _pull the plug,_  whenever he wants.

"Oh, it's not so bad." 

"Whatever you say," he tells him right back, eyes glazing over a new profile, one he's never read before.

"Well, good night, Haru-chan." Nagisa chirps.

"Good night." The phone call ends on the other side and Haruka chucks the device over his shoulder. He glances furtively back at his computer screen and frowns at the name, scanning the details of this newfound profile. For all the time he’s kept in touch with Makoto over the years since he moved, Haruka has never taken him for someone keen for  _social media._ In fact, with face oddly turning red, Haruka muses that it feels wrong to look at in the first place. He is more used to the random emails and nightly phone calls, not  _page likes_ and the excessive use of  _emojis_.

 _Tachibana Makoto._ Aged seventeen, third year transfer student at Iwatobi High School. Likes cats, chocolate cake, red plaid shirts, and his family. All predictable things. 

Date when the page was activated? One week before the start of the spring term. Not very active on the page itself, but many girls enjoy writing on his wall. He answers back in emoticons and stuttering ellipses. Polite and friendly, but not too revealing. Insubstantial answers on purpose.

His private message to his relative, presumably:  _I'm going to miss Tokyo for sure, auntie, but I can't wait to get back to Iwatobi._

 _Aw, why's that, Makoto?_ His aunt writes back. 

There's a break in the conversation and an answer isn't made for another two minutes on Makoto's end, almost as if he had been reluctant to type anything back at all. But when the answer does come, Haruka leans forward to make sure he's reading it right to begin with. It reads:

_Well, this might sound silly, but there's someone I've wanted to see again._

And with that, Haruka decides that this is one profile he can do without looking at.

 

**x**

 

Haruka decides that blue is infinitely better.

Positioning his phone up at the expanse, Haruka takes a quick picture of today’s cloudless sky, wondering what kind of hex code this color might deliver. #46AEFF? #7AB5EC? Haruka can't be too sure, but all he knows is that it's better than any hot magenta pink Rei has drawn up for yesterday’s interface. Blue is more serene, more  _at ease_ for something as hectic as a modern-day love letter, and it might be easier for the person receiving it to say,  _'well, let me just give this some honest, honest thought'_ instead of running off in a panic.

"It's really nice out today, huh?"

Haruka makes out the sound of another boy's voice, lighter than his, at the bottom of the stairs. Peering from his phone, he almost lets it slip out from his hands altogether when he comes face to face with Makoto. 

“Ah. Good morning.” Haruka peers at him, slipping his phone back into his pocket. He’s still not used to seeing Makoto  _in person_ , even if he’s grown used to the way his voice has changed since their middle school era phone calls. Sometimes he forgets that people  _grow up_ , and that he’s grown, too, but Makoto doesn’t seem bothered by the phenomenon of it at all. 

“Good morning, Haru.” Makoto laughs a bit. “Wanna walk to school together?”

“Okay.” Haruka nods.

“That one’s a bit weird to say still, huh?” Makoto muses. “We’re actually getting to  _walk_  together.”

“It’s not weird.” Haruka lies, but only just a tad. For all the years he’s only seen Makoto through emails and letters and errant phone calls, there’s a level of eerily placed comfort that’s already established itself physically.

Haruka takes another peek at him when they start hitting the road, side by side in perfect harmony like they’ve been doing this all along. Makoto looks nothing like his profile pictures. For one, his smile rings truer,  _brighter_ than anything found on screen, and he seems a lot more comfortable in person than the slightly hunched form he takes in all of his photographs. Haruka knows there's always a difference between tagged, candid photos and the staged, hand-picked sort used for profile pictures, but in that instance, in quick judgment that probably won't mean anything later, Haruka figures that Tachibana Makoto is just the type to look his best in person. He was always the same as a child, too.

"Ah." Haruka lets his gaze loom back up at the sky. "Yeah." In an effort to try to distract himself, he decides that the sky is probably closer to an illustrious shade of #AFD2F3.

“You know, I thought starting my last year here would be kind of weird.” Makoto laughs. “But it isn’t so bad.”

Haruka hums. “Hm. It is slower paced here.”

“Slower?”

“Easier to acclimate.”

“ _Acclimate_?”

“Tokyo has too many people.” Haruka edges out. “Always stepping on each other’s shoes.”

“You were always one for  _simple_ , huh?” Laughing, Makoto stretches his arms behind his back with an achy drawl of a yawn.

“Hm.” Haruka shrugs. “It’s easier that way.”

“Yeah. Maybe that’s it.” Makoto looks over at Haruka, and the latter finds himself trapped in his gaze upon looking. He tears himself away from it after a while, keeping silence along the walking path. Makoto takes in the quietness between them too, staring out to the sea when they reach the view of it.

"So I joined the swim team formally yesterday." Makoto announces in his gentle way, offhandedly.

Haruka perks up just slightly at that. "Oh."

"And at first, I tried looking for you on the roster...because, you know, with you and water and all." Makoto laughs a little. "I remember some of the senpais begging you to join the team in middle school, too."

"You remember that?" Haruka asks, remembering that particular phone call almost five springs ago. 

"Of course." Makoto sighs. He gleams over at Haruka, eyes slightly glinted from the morning sun. It's almost as if he's saying,  _'you are my best friend, after all,'_ but Haruka doesn't want to jump to any conclusions. He reminds himself that there's no such thing as mind-reading. 

"I bet the captains begged you here, too." Makoto says. "I talked to them actually. They say you sneak into the pool at night sometimes."

"Only sometimes."

"Very you, isn't it?" Makoto asks, but Haruka just greets him with more silence.

"...I guess." Haruka finally answers him.

"Hm, but you know what I was thinking?" Makoto muses next.

"What?"

"You don't have to sneak in anymore. We can swim together, if you want."

Haruka tries to hide the rising  _glee_  in his face, the strange redness, before suppressing it altogether. Makoto just goes on smiling, unconcerned with any potential answer. 

"Only if I have time." Haruka tells him, as nonchalantly as possible.

 

**x**

 

The moment Rin comes into the club room, it only takes him about ten minutes to show off his new gaming laptop, red-ridged and roaring from the vent fan. 

"My  _baby._ "

"Congratulations." Haruka doesn't look up from the code he's working on. "What did you put on the birth certificate?"

"Oh,  _shut up_. Built it myself. I think the graphics card is so good it's  _literally_  illegal. I'm telling you guys, quit this coding crap. Gaming is where it's at."

Haruka shakes his head. "You get too competitive to play with."

"You just don't like killing the fish monsters in the RPGs I play."

"I don't." Haruka will give him that.

"They give terrible experience points, so it's okay." Rin grumbles. "But anyway, enough about that." 

"Yes, enough about that." Haruka mimics without gusto, whipping his phone out again. Snapping a quick picture of Rin, he thinks of what shade of crimson he'd get in hex codes. He predicts #b20000, a red that's neither too dark or too bright. Inputting the picture into his newest phone app, the program registers the color as #7C0000. Close enough.

"What are you doing?" Rin wrinkles his nose. "I just finished a six-hour raid today. I'm not lookin' that hot."

"Testing something." Haruka answers him. "I'll erase it."

Rin rolls his eyes. "Computer geek."

"Same to you." Haruka retorts without missing a beat. He lets silence creep up in the room while Nagisa and Rei are out scouting for new clients, ignoring the repeated knocking on the door for any afternoon appointments. Rin opens up his game,  _whatever it is he's trying to master this month_ , already producing a string of profanities within a few minutes of playing.

"Say, Haru..." Rin says, half-distracted, clicking away on his keyboard. "You know who I ran into on my way here?"

"Hm?" Haruka answers him, trying to remember an algorithm his grandmother once taught him when he was still learning his basics.

"Your little pen pal. Love letter boy.  _Ta-chi-ba-na Ma-ko-to._ " Rin teases syllable by syllable, voice growing more and more mockingly seductive.

Haruka frowns up from his laptop, exchanging glares from the top of the screen.

"Why do you keep calling him that?"

Rin practically snorts. "What do you  _think_?" He lets out another string of profanities and keeps clicking on. "Don't think I'd forget something like  _that._ "

"My laptop is password-protected."

"Please, mister  _dolphin thirty_." Rin says. "Can you be anymore simple?"

Haruka shrugs and tries typing another line of code before realizing how distracted he really is. He shuts it closed and leans back in his seat, opting to stare up at the ceiling. 

"That was two years ago." Haruka says.

"So you're not going to give it to him, then?  _Love letter revision two,_ wasn't that the document name?" 

"It's...on eight now, actually."

"Point proven."

"I didn't ask you."

"Oh, but you're  _telling_  me." Rin raises an eyebrow and keeps himself from letting out a victory screech when he wins whatever he's playing. 

Haruka can feel his face grow red. He's not sure what shade that would be in hex code. It's too embarrassing to even think about. 

"All I'm saying is, if you're  _still_  thinking about things like that, maybe you should give it to him." Rin sighs. "Write him an app, make a flying monkey game. I don't know. Whatever it is you usually do for the others."

Haruka shakes his head. "It's just not right." He still can't place his finger on it, but there's something off about combining code and the likes of Makoto.

"I guess not." Rin shrugs. "Then again, you did fall in love with him without actually seeing him in person for a decade. Wouldn't it be confessing to him in the same way be the way to do it?"

Haruka shakes his head and thinks of Makoto again, something he's caught himself doing much too often, splendid under the warmth of the sun. Tangibly tall, broad, bustling with real life. 

"It really isn't the same." he reiterates. 

"Well, I'd just hurry before some other straggler comes to  _steal your man."_

"That won't happen." 

"You seem sure about that."

"Hm." Haruka gives a little shake of the head.

Rin laughs. "You really do like to keep things simple, huh?"

Haruka just flips his laptop open again. He tells himself he'll figure out the right code for this sooner or later, other confessors be damned.

 

**x**

 

Haruka dips his feet into the pool and sits by the edge, laptop resting on his thighs, lit-up screen aiding the darkness of the evening. With fingers shaking a little more than usual, he takes a deep breath and pretends that he's actually concerned with the program in front of him, but there's no use denying the small headache he's getting from staring at the computer for so long. He exits out of his newest project, an app that'll detect the color hex code of any specific spot on a snapped phone photo, and opens up something else instead.

_love letter revision 8.docx_

"Coding again?"

With a whole body jerk, Haruka watches his laptop pop up with the jolt of his legs. It makes a small, final leap before sliding into the watery grave in front of him.

"O-oh my god, I'm so sorry, Haru!" Makoto jumps in right after it without hesitation, pulling it out with a raised arm and handing it, hesitantly, to Haruka. He hangs by the wall of the pool by his shoulders, hiding the lower half of his face in his forearms. Haruka shakes all the water free from under his keyboard and determines, with little fanfare, that the laptop has met its untimely end. He stares back down at Makoto, more confused than anything else, and just sets the laptop down next to him. At least he’ll have an excuse not to work for Nagisa tonight, and it’s not like he doesn’t have everything saved on flash drives and cloud storages. 

This also includes  _love letter revision 8_ , which he has saved on every outlet available.

“It’s fine.”

“No,  _no_  it certainly isn’t!” Makoto tries to pull himself out of the water, but he’s obviously so worked up about it that he has trouble lifting himself onto the poolside. Haruka just sighs and heaves himself up from wading, crouching down on the cement to help Makoto out of the water. Hesitantly, he holds out his hand, and Makoto just stares back at him for a moment, too, before taking the offer. Eyes lock on again, just like this morning, as Haruka tightens his grip on Makoto’s palm and he hoists him out of the pool. The two of them stay knelt on the ground for a moment, fishing for the right thing to say next, before Haruka decides that these sorts of silences aren’t exactly the worst thing. Makoto breaks it first though, giving up an easy little laugh and leaning back on the cement with propped elbows.

Haruka’s face goes red again and he looks away.  _Picture perfect_.

“You know what this reminds me of?” Makoto asks.

“Hm?”

“Take a guess.”

“A guess?” 

Makoto nods.

Haruka blinks at him a couple of times before lifting himself off of the cement, brushing the dust off his knees. He looks out at the form dusk, and how it’s getting chilly out here because it’s still early in the spring. Peering back down at Makoto, Haruka thinks he must be cold, all dripping wet with the breeze blowing through him, and he knows he’s right when he sees Makoto’s teeth chatter through his smile. Then he remembers a call from the winter,  _from all of their winters_ , where Makoto would constantly complain about being cold.  _‘Tokyo winters are really too harsh!’_ he’d say without fail.

Haruka’s not sure what answer Makoto is looking for, and he’s still pretty sure that things like  _telepathy_  don’t exist, but at least he has an answer to give.

“Our phone calls.” he answers Makoto simply.

Makoto takes his turn at peering up next, although it’s clear that the sky isn’t what interests him. He sits up straight and nods, eyes sinking into something soft. Haruka finds himself sitting back down too, a little closer than before, even if it’s only by a couple of centimeters.

“Bingo.” Makoto tells him. “You know how sometimes, when we talked at night, the line would go quiet? It’d be either one of us, I’m not sure who did it more, but I’d ask... _’hey, are you still there?’_  and you’d say—”

“ _Yeah, I’m here.”_  Haruka finishes for Makoto, frankly surprised at himself. He draws his knees to his chest and watches a couple of birds fly overhead. Silence hits them again, so Haruka takes the time to exchange another glance with Makoto, blue on green,  _green on blue_ , before closing his eyes and picturing the dead air of a phone call gone stagnant. But then he thinks,  _no,_  it’s not that any of their calls have gone  _dead_  or they’ve run out of things to talk about. None of their small silences have been  _awkward_.

“This is what I mean.” Makoto says. “Doesn’t it remind you of those times?”

Haruka shrugs. “I guess.”

Makoto hums out a sigh, tired and probably really feeling the effects of the late-day chill, but no amount of warmth escapes from him anyway.

“Well, maybe some things are different now.” he remarks next.

Haruka frowns a little. “How?”

Makoto runs his fingers through dampened bangs, pushing them back to get the water out of his eyes. It seems that he’s thinking of the perfect way to phrase things, fidgeting like this in only the smooth way Makoto  _would_  be capable of, but Haruka won’t force anything out of him.

“When things go quiet between us, I won’t have to ask if you’re still there.” Makoto’s gaze looms up, a little bit shier than usual, voice sweet like honey. “Because you’re right in front of me now, aren’t you?” 

Heat rises up in Haruka’s face, and he’d like to blame the last bit of sun on the horizon for that, but he knows there’s no point in finding scapegoats. He just nods along, in the tiniest of motions because he’s not even sure he wants Makoto to read him like that,  _but he_   _does_   _anyway_ , judging from the way he lights up, shoulders lowering away from bashfulness.

“Ah...well, I didn’t mean to get so philosophical about things.” Makoto muses next. “I guess we should get going, huh?” He groans a little when he forces himself off the concrete, breathing into his hands to relieve himself from the nippiness of the oncoming evening. He turns his back on Haruka for just a moment when he bends down to pick up the downtrodden laptop, guilt returning in the form of long and heavy sighs. Haruka stares at Makoto’s bare back, brown hair still dripping wet with pool water and making small rivers on shivering skin.

“And you know, I _really_  am sorry about the laptop, and I’ll definitely get you a new one, if you just tell me the model name and price and—ah... _Haru._ ” Makoto stops what he’s saying when Haruka places his school blazer over the other boy’s shoulders. For once, Makoto is the speechless one, and he just wraps the jacket around himself closer, keeping his eyes on the floor.

Haruka just rolls his own shirtsleeves up to the bend in his arm and lets the redness in his face run rampant.

“We can talk about that later.” Haruka says. “It’s not that important.”

“If you say so.” Makoto just laughs, shaking himself from those last remnants of embarrassment, still holding the blazer close to him, even if it’s about a size too small. “Do you want to talk about it on the way home?”

_On the way home._

Like walking back together is a given.

“Okay.” Haruka tells him, because it wouldn’t be so bad if that were the case anyway.

“And…what about your computer?” Makoto frowns a bit, with the both of them ending up side by side, scaling up the side of the pool to find the exit.

“I don’t need it.” Nagisa and Rei will scold him for sure.

And for the first time in a long, long while, Haruka thinks a night without the Internet might be good for him. His consciousness usually has a funny way of balancing program codes, hackathon registrations, beta testing, and profile-checking all at once, like a whirlpool of numbers and binary, but oddly, in that exact moment, none of it comes to him. As he watches Makoto rise up from the ground, strong and sure like he’s the morning sun itself, dead laptop clutched to his chest, Haruka can only think of him.

That Makoto’s  _here_ , in Iwatobi.

And that love letters should be delivered in person.

 


End file.
